


Foolish Fire

by shootingstarcipher



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universes, Angst, Demon Bill Cipher, Human Bill Cipher, M/M, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-10 23:40:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7865992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootingstarcipher/pseuds/shootingstarcipher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some realities just aren’t meant to be realised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Brave & Foolish

**Author's Note:**

> This may seem a bit confusing but everything will be explained eventually~

Bill Cipher had just about had enough.

He was sick and tired of the constant bruises, the occasional broken bones and the uncertainty that haunted his nightmares. Never knowing whether he was going to wake up in the morning had started taking its toll on him a long time ago, but only now was he beginning to realise just how bad it had gotten. His family was none the wiser. They were aware, of course, of what was happening to him because they were the dreaded perpetrators behind it, but they had no idea of the horrific consequences of their unfortunate actions.

Electrocution was by far the worst, though also (and thankfully) the least frequent method of torture he’d ever been forced to endure, and it was the subject of his dreams more nights than he preferred to acknowledge. And it just so happened that after suffering through his older brother’s latest eruption of anger - which was remedied by putting him through what were possibly the most terrifying thirty minutes of his life - the idea that had been shoved to the back of his mind for the past four or five years resurfaced again, pushing its way into his current thoughts and screaming at him like a child crying for attention.

The possibility of committing suicide had always been there. It was the one thing that had always been stable, much unlike his parents’ moods. But now it was making its presence known to him. So it was unsurprising when, sitting alone in the attic room he called his own, he picked up his pen, grabbed a sheet of paper and sat down, preparing to write his suicide note. But did he really need to write one? Wasn’t it obvious why he felt the need to take his own life? If he didn’t do it soon, they’d do it for him. He froze, unable to think of any words to write, and dropped the pen onto his lap, gazing out the window.

Gravity Falls. It was a quaint, peaceful little town. Pretty yet peculiar and rich in natural beauty. His screams never seemed to leave his home, trapped in the basement in a never-ending cycle of shrill, unforgiving agony. Cruelty was their speciality. They said they did it to teach him how to behave, to show him how to fit in and be just like everyone else, because if he gave in and acted like a normal human being he wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. They said he made them suffer - by being different. They said it was embarrassing to have a son like him, even though he couldn’t see anything wrong with what he did at all. There was nothing wrong with reading, he used to argue back. There was nothing wrong with being interested in the unknown and inexplicable, or wanting more than what he was told was normal and acceptable.

Outside, the sun was just beginning to set, hazy clouds parting to make way for the dying rays of the golden orb above, allowing them to merge with rose-tinted sky surrounding them. The sunlight, though dying, seemed to reach out to every part of that quiet little town. But there were just some places the light couldn’t touch. He was one of them.  
Sometimes, he had moments of inspiration. Sudden bursts of motivation that he couldn’t explain, but that usually served to save his life. Like now, when all he was really sure of was that he wanted to die, and yet a spark suddenly springing to life inside his brain prevented him from doing so. Instead, it told him to read.

Strange things were going on in that town - strange things he couldn’t let go of, things he couldn’t force out of his mind. The journal he’d found in the forest around his home was proof of that. It was marked as journal number three and had a six-fingered handed embellished on its thick leather cover. Its pages were yellowed and it was clearly very old, having been covered in cobwebs when he found it. Inside were documents of encounters with unusual and virtually impossible creatures, such as animals with more heads than one would expect as well as mythical creatures such as unicorns and gnomes. He hadn’t dared let anyone else see it, so he’d kept it hidden away under his bed but took it out every time he was alone to read it. Now was one such occasion.

Turning away from the triangular window beside his bed, he slipped the book out and lay down with it in his hands, examining the book with a look of awe and wonder. And just like that, all thoughts of suicide were pushed out of his mind, replaced with only curiosity and astonishment. He ran his thumb over the red leather cover, silently questioning where the other journals were seeing as there must have been at least two books he hadn’t yet discovered, and flipped through the pages until one caught his eye.

But before he stopped at one particular page, the sound of footsteps made him freeze and his muscles tensed momentarily. Coming to his senses, he snapped the book shut and threw it under his bed, hoping that nobody heard it skid across the wooden floorboards as it delved into the shadows beneath the bed. His brother appeared before he had the chance to hide himself.

He looked quite similar to Bill but had a stronger build. His eyes were the same liquid gold as Bill’s but unlike the younger of the two, both of his eyes remained intact (Bill, on the other hand, had lost his right in what was known to most people as a “tragic accident” but only they knew the truth about). They wore their hair in similar styles - long and wavy, with bangs that intruded on their fields of vision - but while both of them were natural blonds, the elder repeatedly dyed his bright blue to distinguish himself from his younger brother.

It felt as if the floorboards shook when he strode across them, threatening to break under his commanding gait. His hands were clasped behind his back as he approached his younger brother, smirking cruelly at the look of terror on his face. Scooting backwards to press his back up against the wall behind him, Bill hugged his knees to his chest and cowered, nothing but pure horror enveloping him. Adrenaline was coursing through his veins but it wasn’t enough to give him the will to fight back. If he was going to be beaten again, he’d take it quietly, because maybe what they really wanted was to hear him scream. If he didn’t do that, then maybe they’d leave him alone. Except that he never managed to contain his screams because it was just too painful and he always broke, despite his willpower.

“They want to speak to you,” his brother grunted, his voice as rough and coarse as ever. 

Bill didn’t know what was worse: being intimidated by his brother, taunted with the ever-present possibility of torture, or getting into trouble with their parents. They at least would get any attacks over and done with quickly, though he’d be made to clean up any blood left behind afterwards for fear that it would stain their clothes if they did it themselves or that somebody else would notice if it was left. His brother was different. He liked cleaning up the blood; that wasn’t what bothered him. What bothered him was that his brother took his time. He liked to play mind games - sick, twisted mind games that always ultimately resulted in the same thing.

Without a word, he stood up - cautiously - and headed towards the stairs, only for his path to be blocked by his older brother. Thankfully, he managed to duck around him the next time he tried to get passed and ran down the stairs, somewhat worried that the rickety stairs might break underneath his weight. They were delicate enough as it was without him concentrating all of his weight on one tiny area of each step at a time as he flew down them. He hated the idea of his brother being alone in his room, knowing that he might interfere with his personal belongings - not that he had many - and that he could easily stumble upon the journal hidden beneath his bed, but he had no choice. Besides, he was powerless against his brother and couldn’t stop him from doing anything he wanted, so there was really no reason to obsess over it.

They were waiting for him in the living room, stern looks on their faces and cold harsh gazes that reduced his steps to trembling shuffles. They told him to sit and he did, though he was not permitted to sit down on any surface other than the floor unless they were eating in the kitchen, so he sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor facing his parents and cast his gaze down at his hands, afraid of what the consequences would be if he dared look either of them in the eye.

He heard his father clear his throat and the demand that he look up at him, so he did. Although terrified, he raised his head and held his gaze, his bold move resulting in him feeling slightly stronger than he usually did. “So it seems you’ve been off looking for trouble again,” his father mused and he heard a snicker a metre or so to his right, and glanced towards the sound to find his brother lingering in the doorway, a sinister grin plastered onto his face. “Well, don’t!” His attention suddenly snapped back into place again. “Do you think it makes you brave and courageous? Well it doesn’t! It makes you a fool! And you know exactly how we feel about you making us look like fools as well!”

He did. They despised it - him going off and exploring, desperately searching for something more than the sordid life he had already. He wanted magic, excitement, madness. They had magic; they had the excitement of hurting him; they were mad for the idea of being normal - or at least appearing that way.

His brother was suddenly behind him, forcing him to hang his head by slamming his booted foot down on his back, causing him to jerk his head down and grit his teeth so as to stop himself from vocalising his pain. This time it was their mother who was snickering. A part of him wanted to glower at her with all the hatred he felt for her, but he knew that would be a careless move. She was a plain woman who came across as weak and timid, with an elegant build and expensive tastes that could not be catered for on her husband’s salary, but which she managed to satisfy via other means. In spite of her appearance, she had a monstrous side that was unleashed upon him whenever he put a toe out of line.

“You’d better go, brat,” his father barked. It was a command disguised as a suggestion. “Back to that attic and don’t let me see you ‘til the morning.” After a moment, the pressure was released from his back and he hurried to his feet, almost tripping over his brother - who stood back and sneered at him - as he scuttled up to the attic. Once there, he dove onto his bed and snatched the journal up from the floor, gazing at it in his hands. Then an idea struck him.

He’d tried it before but had no success. Then again, he’d given up too quickly back then. Now he was committed. He’d show them what he could do - what he was capable of - and then… Then they’d be sorry. Then they’d bow down to him instead of him being forced to worship the very ground they walked on.

Practically flinging himself off the bed, he tossed the book back down onto the mattress and stared at it, his gaze cold and hard and full of determination. Then he raised his left hand, aiming it at the journal, and concentrated hard, filling his mind with the image of the book flying into his hand. For a while, nothing happened. But then he saw the red cover of the book raise itself slightly and it spurred him on, prompting him to concentrate even harder. His family weren’t the most magical demons ever to grace the universe and he was likely to be the least - that’s what they told him - but he would be the most powerful eventually. He’d show them his full potential. Eventually.

After lifting up into the air for just a moment, the book dropped to the bed and he gave an exasperated sigh, lowering his hand and deciding to give up for the time being. Maybe it was never going to happen after all.

He may not have been able to perform magic like he was supposed to, but he was still incredibly interested in studying it. That’s why he was intrigued by the journal. They’d told him they were the only magical beings in existence - that they were the only family of demons and that there was no such thing as anything else humanity didn’t know about already. But now he knew otherwise and he needed to find out more. Maybe the other creatures were unable to perform magic unlike his family, but that probably only meant they’d be more accepting of him. So he needed to find them.

During the course of his studies he had uncovered something in particular he was very interested in, though he knew little about it and felt a dire need for more information. Ley lines. Weak points between two or more alternate realities. And Gravity Falls was one giant weak spot - more specifically, the area surrounding his very house. He’d known about it for a while but it was only tonight that he discovered its true significance.

One glance at the crumpled up bit of paper on his nightstand instantly reignited the spark inside his brain that told him to give up on his miserable life and, instead of wishing he could do something about, actually do something about it and end it forever. Running wasn’t an option. Neither was fighting back. But dying was. It was amazing how quickly his ambitions could shift from motivating him to fight back to convincing him it was useless and that he should just give up now while he had the chance.

The note he wound up writing was messy and unrehearsed. Unoriginal too. It gave no real indication of what was driving him to it but he supposed that didn’t matter - firstly, because nobody cared and secondly, because everyone involved knew exactly why he felt the need to do it. They’d probably pretend they’d never even had another son, just to keep their image clean. He tossed the note onto the nightstand and laid the pen beside it.

Now that the note was out of the way, he just needed to come up with a method of getting himself out of the way. In hindsight, it probably would have been logical to think of that first. But he never got round to thinking of it because something else happened - something which distracted his focus yet again.

The note he’d left on the nightstand disappeared. It was just… gone. And within a few minutes, another one appeared in its place.

“I don’t know what’s happened to you but please don’t kill yourself. At least wait a few days and see how you feel then. I don’t know if this will help but I really hope you listen to me.”


	2. Taking the Fall

Three days ago, a suicide note had miraculously appeared on the nightstand in between the two beds in the attic room of the Mystery Shack and, whilst getting ready for bed that evening, Dipper Pines had stumbled across it. Although there were many things he didn’t understand about it - where it had come from, how it had wound up there in his room, and most of all, what had happened to its author to make them believe the only way out was to take their own life - he considered that, with all the strange goings on he and his twin sister had discovered during the few weeks they’d been in Gravity Falls, the best thing to do was to act and act fast. In usual circumstances, he would have waited until he had an answer to every single one of his questions before doing anything. But this involved a person planning to kill themselves - and soon, from what he gathered from the letter.

The note was very short, just a single phrase, and was exactly what he’d expected from a note of this manner. It was generic and cliché: “I can’t go on.” It gave no indication as to what had happened or as to whom they were addressing, so he guessed it didn’t matter. Maybe they had no-one to address but had written a note anyway because it was the done thing in circumstances such as these, or just in case someone happened to come across the body. At the end of the letter - after the initial sentence - was the word, “Sorry” and it had been signed as simply “Bill”. 

Realising he was overthinking it, he’d scribbled out a reply to the note, telling whoever this “Bill” was to wait for a few days before killing himself. He’d watched it disappear into the unknown, vanishing from the nightstand, and hadn’t been able to get much sleep that night. He’d tried to relax but his mind had still been overthinking it all. He only knew one Bill and murder seemed to be much more his still, not suicide. But it would have been unreasonable to assume they were the same person - or being, seeing as the Bill he knew was not a person at all, but a demon - although, if they were the same, it would have explained why the note had appeared miraculously. And it would probably mean he was being played for a fool.

Now, almost precisely three days later, he’d still had no reply from the mysterious letter writer and Bill Cipher hadn’t contacted him either. But then, as he and his twin sister were each lying in their respective beds (him reading a mystery novel and her curling up with the pig she’d won at a fair a week or so ago, Waddles) another letter appeared on the nightstand. Mabel noticed it first and yelled across the room at him (even though there was really no need) in order to get his attention. He snatched the letter up immediately upon catching sight of it and read it aloud.

“Thank you for convincing me not to take my own life without at least thinking carefully about it first, and to be perfectly honest I had no idea how I was actually going to do it, but thank you anyway. Do you understand how we’re communicating? I don’t, though I have my suspicions, so if you do would you please write back to me and explain it? Or we could just discuss our ideas about it. Thanks again, Bill.”

He’d told Mabel about the suicide note he’d found three days earlier already so she was aware of what was going on, but this new letter came as a surprise to the both of them. At least it meant he had killed himself, whoever he was. And it seemed like the first note wasn’t a cruel joke as Dipper had suspected, though he still couldn’t be certain. When Bill Cipher played practical jokes, they’d probably be as elaborate as anything.

Before he knew it, Mabel was rooting around in his backpack and shoving a pen and notepad into his face, demanding that he wrote a reply. “He’ll be expecting one,” she insisted. “So, what are you going to say? Do you actually know how you’re sending letters to each other?” Taking the pen and notebook from her, he set them down in his lap and sighed, shaking his head. Of course he didn’t. This was one of the few mysteries he’d encountered that had him completely stumped. Despite his doubts about what he was going to write, he picked up the pen and started writing anyway. And once he did, the words just seemed to come to him automatically.

“You don’t need to thank me,” he wrote. “I’m just glad to know you’re okay. As to how this works, I’m absolutely clueless. You seem to know more about this than me, so what do you think it is?” He read it out loud as he wrote for Mabel’s benefit and she nodded all the while in agreement. Once he’d finished, he checked over it - making sure he was happy with what he’d written - tore off the page and placed it on the nightstand. Then they sat back and watched it disappear into God knows where.

“So do you think it really is Bill?” his sister suddenly asked, slipping back under her blanket and lying on her side to face him, Waddles curled up next to her on the bed. “The triangle guy, I mean,” she elaborated.

Dipper paused for a moment to consider her question. They had no real evidence that it wasn’t the same Bill they already knew, but there wasn’t much to suggest that it was either: only that they shared the same first name and that there was clearly some kind of magic enabling them to communicate with one another. But Bill Cipher didn’t need magic to get to him. He could just walk - or float - right into his thoughts on a whim. There was no need for an elaborate scheme, unless that was purely for his own amusement. That wouldn’t have been surprising.

After thinking about it, he arrived at no definite conclusion and simply shrugged. “It could be, but why would he go to all this trouble? - pretending he doesn’t know what’s going on and everything. It just doesn’t make sense. Then again,” he added, doubting himself again. “Since when did Bill Cipher make sense?”

Then a thought struck him. He had never signed the letters he’d sent to Bill - the one he was communicating with via the notes that appeared and disappeared seemingly magically and not the demon he knew already, unless of course they were the same being - and so, unless they were the same, he wouldn’t know who he was and he certainly wouldn’t recognise him as Pine Tree; he shuddered when he thought of the nickname the demon had given him, suddenly hating it even more than usual. But the point his brain was trying to make was that if Bill - not the demon - wrote something that only the demon would know about him, then clearly they were the same being. But how to trick him into doing it?

He didn’t have much time to contemplate it, seeing as another note manifested on the nightstand before he’d had the chance to ponder it any longer, and he reached out and grabbed at it the second he saw it. Mabel sat up in anticipation and waited for him to finish reading it. Patience wasn’t one of her greatest qualities so it was just as well that the letter, as it always seemed to be, was relatively short. This time it described his suspicion that they were actually able to send letters to one another due to the ley lines running across the earth - because of a magical weak point that they had, rather coincidentally, stumbled upon simultaneously.

As he read the letter, something in Dipper’s brain seemed to light up and everything suddenly fell into place, making a lot more sense than it had done previously. “Of course,” he gasped, amazed by the letter writer’s knowledge of magical occurrences and theories. His sister stared at him impatiently, eyebrows raised in confusion. “Ley lines!” he exclaimed, acting as if she should have understood everything perfectly after hearing only those two words. He sighed at her lack of knowledge before elaborating. “They’re lines that run across the earth. We can’t see them, but they’re there, and full of magic (so the theory goes). And at certain points, they cross over, indicating magical weak spots.”

Mabel’s facial expression still suggested confusion. “So… what does this have to do with us?”

“They’re not just any weak spots,” Dipper continued, slightly exasperated by his sister’s lack of understanding, even though he was sympathetic to the fact that not everyone was as interested in studying inexplicable occurrences as he was. Besides, Mabel just didn’t have the concentration to study by choice in her free time; she was much more concerned with creative works like scrapbooking. “If we’re to believe the theories, they’re weak points between alternate realities. Which means…”

“That we’re sending letters to another reality?” Mabel interrupted, still sounding perplexed but excited at the same time.

“Exactly,” Dipper nodded, a smile spreading across his face. But then his face fell suddenly at the realisation that, if they were to believe that they were sending letters between alternate realities, then the despondent, humanised Bill who had apparently felt so hopeless that he thought suicide was the only way forward could possibly have been the same Bill he already knew, but a different one all the same - one from a different reality. His muscles tensed and his hand - which was currently holding the pen, preparing to write another note - started to tremble. When Mabel asked what was wrong he simply said he didn’t know what to write, and then stood up and told her he was going to get a glass of water.

But as he walked passed her, she reached out and caught his arm, stopping him in his tracks. “It’s him, isn’t it?” It was as if she’d read his mind. Maybe there was something to twin telepathy after all, he mused almost jokingly, even though the idea didn’t seem so ridiculous after what they’d been through together. “It’s Bill Cipher.” He thought she was latching onto the idea too quickly, putting too much trust in her intuition rather than analysing the evidence they had and making a judgement based off that, but he also thought she may have been right so he simply shrugged and hurried passed her, making his way downstairs.

Mabel stayed behind, watching him leave for a moment before swiping the latest letter - along with the pen and notepad - from her brother’s bed. Quickly reading over the letter, she scrawled out a reply. If Dipper had known what she was doing, he wouldn’t have allowed her to do it. That’s why she’d had to wait until he’d left the room. Besides, he was never going to see the letter she wrote - just the response they got from Bill. And then he’d thank her for what she’d done - for taking the plunge and questioning his identity outright as opposed to waiting around to find out for themselves. The letter she wrote was no more than one sentence long (and a very short sentence at that) and it didn’t need to be any longer as far as she was concerned.

Dipper wasn’t going to like it, the response they got. She didn’t like it either, but it wasn’t exactly unexpected and at least they had a definite answer now. The letter appeared on the nightstand even faster than it usually did, and on it were the words:

“I’m Bill Cipher. Who are you?”


	3. Tomorrow

He never received a reply. He waited for days and days, his grip on his patience slipping with each one that passed, and still the mysterious entity who lay in a world beyond his own - who had saved him from taking his own life, though he was now starting to question whether that had really been such a good thing to happen - refused to answer him. He didn’t understand. He’d told them who he was - Bill Cipher - and saw no reason for them to keep quiet about their own identity. Unless of course even people in other realities had caught wind of him, and whatever it was that made him such an easy target for bullying and abuse in his own world had passed onto others already.

Determined not to be discouraged by the silence, he carried on sending letters. It was his only source of social interaction that did not include being taunted or bullied but now it seemed hopeless, as if he was destined to live a lonely and fearful life. He still sent a letter or two every day and spent all of his free time staring at the empty space on the nightstand, waiting for a letter to appear. And finally, a stroke of genius invaded his mind.

He was crawling up the stairs - literally, on his hands and knees - with his brother shouting up after him, barking at him that he should hope to God he died in his sleep, because tomorrow was going to be a particularly traumatising day for him, and heading towards his room when the idea struck him. The wooden stairs creaked under his weight even though he wasn’t particularly heavy; the stairs were just old and rickety and it was impossible to touch them without eliciting a squeak or a groan of some kind. His hands were charred and the burning sensation remained while he crawled up the staircase, intensifying every time they made contact with the wood beneath them.

Struggling to his feet, he dragged himself up from the floor and staggered to his bed, collapsing on it with an exhausted groan. He let the idea sink into his head until it consumed his thoughts completely and, instead of focusing on the pain in his burned hands and wishing he’d at least been allowed to run them under cold water to stop the damage, his attention was fixed solely on two things: keeping himself safe from his brother (and the rest of his family), and staying in contact with whoever had managed to convince him not to try and kill himself the week before.

If letters could be sent to the other world simply by placing it on the nightstand and waiting for it to vanish from one reality and into the next, then surely other objects could be sent that way too… including himself. In one way, it was a perfect solution. He’d be safe there, as far as he was concerned. Whatever awaited him on the other side couldn’t have been anywhere near as horrific as the world he already knew. He had nothing to lose. But he had to be sure it would work first, so he started off by placing smaller objects - namely, books and clothes - on the nightstand and watching them disappear, presumably to the world with which he’d been communicating.

And then, it was his turn. He sat down on it cautiously, half-afraid it would break under his weight but it didn’t and - after sitting as still as he was able to for roughly three or four minutes - he was suddenly swallowed by a flash of golden light. He squeezed his eye shut on instinct and opened them carefully after a moment or so, once he was sure the light had gone.

It hadn’t worked. When he’d seen the golden light he’d been so sure it had, but maybe that had just been his mind playing tricks on him. It certainly didn’t seem like he’d been brought to another world. Jumping down from the nightstand, he sighed heavily and stretched out on his bed. It was all just as he’d left it. The attic room - his attic room - with its dust and cobwebs covering every corner, its two single beds in exactly the same places as they’d been left (the one the left being his own and the other never being touched since his brother had moved into a room downstairs) and the wooden floorboards that always seemed to be on the brink of caving in.

But as he lay back on the bed, his legs dangling over the edge, his foot collided with something he hadn’t noticed before. Startled, he bent down and picked up what his foot had touched: a backpack, and inside it was the leather-bound book with yellowed pages and handwritten documents of the mysteries that resided within the town he’d grown up in - his book, journal number three. The book wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he didn’t own a backpack and had certainly never put the journal inside it. But his brother… Yes, it had to have been his brother.

But the sound of the stairs leading up to the attic room creaking as someone stepped on them and the voice that followed debunked his theory entirely. It was a boy’s voice, addressing someone called Mabel. He didn’t know anyone with that name; in fact, he’d never heard of that name before in his life. Scrambling to the edge of the bed so that his back was against the wall behind him, he watched in both horror and curiosity as the footsteps grew louder, keeping his gaze fixed on the top of the stairs.

A boy - around his age - emerged, stepping up into the attic and turning to stare at him. Fair skin, large round chocolate-coloured eyes, a mess of dark hair and a small mouth. His eyebrows were knitted into a frown, his gaze laced with worry and suspicion. Without looking away, the boy shouted down the stairs for Mabel again but received no answer, so instead he took a few shaky steps towards the blond boy on the bed until his fear grew too great to ignore and he stopped dead in his tracks, a trembling whisper - barely coherent - leaving his lips. “B- Bill Cipher?”

A warm smile spread across the blond’s face. “That’s me. So you’re the one I’ve been sending letters to? What’s your name?” He stood up from the bed then, realising that he was the one intruding on the boy’s world and he kicked the backpack back under the bed too, thinking that it had probably been hidden for a reason. The boy didn’t answer, but turned his head back to face the stairs and called for Mabel again, whoever this so-called Mabel was. No reply. So Bill moved towards him - hesitantly - and asked for his name again, his voice growing quieter and quieter each time he spoke.

“As if you don’t know that already!” the boy snapped at him, fear suddenly seeming to dissolve into fury. “What?” he growled, glancing at the blond’s startled expression. “Aren’t you going to call me Pine Tree? And where did you get that body anyway? Not by playing fair, I presume. Just look at what you did to me last time!”

Not understanding what on earth the boy was talking about, Bill’s mind latched onto one of the first things he’d said and stuck with it, ignoring the rest because he deemed it nonsense. “So your name is Pine Tree?” he asked hopefully, only to receive a scowl in response as the boy pushed passed him and collapsed on the bed, closing his eyes as if he’d disappear by the time he opened them again. For the next few minutes, Bill stood by the bed and stared down at the boy, half-wishing he’d never sent himself to that world in the first place. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment and the boy opened one eye to look at him. “I shouldn’t have come here. I guess I’ll just go back.”

He turned towards the nightstand and took one step towards it before the brunet held out his hand and lightly grabbed him by the arm. “Wait, you’re… You’re really Bill Cipher?” The blond nodded ruefully, hating himself more every time the boy said his name. “I think… There are more than just you - versions of yourself, I mean. I’m Dipper,” he added after a moment. “But you - I mean, another you - call me Pine Tree.”

“Oh.” That was all Bill had to say to that. Another version of himself? Considering that he’d just stepped into a reality different from his own (one to which he’d been sending letters for over a week) it certainly sounded possible. He got the feeling Dipper and the other version of himself - the one that called him “Pine Tree” - weren’t exactly friends, and that explained why he’d been so afraid of him as well as why he hadn’t replied to his letter, though he still thought it was impolite of him. He wondered what this other version was like, whether they looked the same or had any similarities at all; judging by Dipper’s reaction to his identity, he guessed that the Bill Cipher he knew in this world was more like his brother than himself.

It took him a while to realise Dipper was talking to him. He was saying something about his sister, that she’d been the one to ask what his name was in the letter. And then Bill automatically said that he’d been disheartened by him not replying after he’d told him his name but instantly regretted it, reminding himself not to appear vulnerable. But then a sharp stabbing pain in the palm of his left hand had him wincing in pain and he forgot completely about trying to come off as stronger than he really was.

To his surprise, Dipper seemed to actually care that he was in pain and led him down the stairs and into the bathroom, where he ran his hands under the cold tap after having explained to him that he’d burned his hands - he didn’t say how it had happened though, preferring to keep his troubling family situation to himself. After his hands had cooled and he’d switched the tap off, Dipper asked him why he’d decided to enter into their world from his own. They looked at each other in silence for a moment before he added, “Does it have something to do with… the first letter you sent? That note?”

Nodding his head slowly, Bill turned to sit down beside the brunet on the edge of the bath. “I, uh, I can’t go back there. Can I stay here? Just for a little while?”

The look on Dipper’s face suggested he couldn’t, but he said otherwise. “I guess so. I’ll have to check with Grunkle Stan though… I mean, my uncle. He’ll probably let you stay as long as you help out in the gift shop from time to time.” Anything was better than going home, Bill wanted to say, but he kept quiet and followed the brunet into the living room where he found an old man sitting in an armchair, gaze fixated on the television screen in front of him, and a girl sitting cross-legged on the floor by the old man’s feet. 

Dipper introduced them: the old man was his great uncle (“Grunkle”) Stan and the girl was the so-called Mabel, Dipper’s twin sister. Neither of them seemed to like him very much and he guessed that was due to their experiences with the version of him they knew from their world, but he couldn’t help feeling dejected. He promised to help out whenever he could and after half an hour of persuasion, Stan finally agreed to let him stay. He had to work in the gift shop with Dipper and Mabel - unpaid - as well as cook meals for the family whenever it was necessary. It had taken a lot to convince him that apart from the meals and the work, his presence in the house - or “the Mystery Shack” as they all called it - would be hardly noticeable, but he was sure it would all be worth keeping out of everyone’s way and working hard to please the man who was taking him in (though he didn’t seem happy to be accepting him into his home).

“But what about Grunkle Ford?” Mabel piped up once it had been decided that the blond was allowed to stay.

“Ford is unimportant,” Stan grumbled, glancing in the direction of the vending machine across the hall. “Besides, he won’t even notice the kid’s here. He never comes out of the basement.” Dipper and Mabel shared a worried look but said no more on the subject of the fabled “Grunkle Ford.”

To his surprise and delight, Bill found that he didn’t have to work or cook or doing anything at all that day because it was already late in the evening and the twins were about to go to bed. This brought up the question of where he was going to sleep - Stan wouldn’t let him sleep in his armchair and the basement was out of bounds - until Dipper said that he’d seen some spare blankets in another part of the house which he could use to make a bed with on the floor of the attic room. And so that’s where he slept, in between the twins’ beds with two blankets beneath him for comfort, one on top of him for warmth and another one under his head scrunched up to create a makeshift pillow.

Mabel fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. He and Dipper, on the other hand, stayed up talking. Dipper told him all about how he’d come to the town just for the summer and about the adventures he’d been on with Mabel and their friends, and when Bill mentioned that he’d found a journal just like the one he had in his own reality, they started to discuss all the different types of creatures they’d read about. Dipper had actually encountered many of them, whilst Bill had only seen a few first-hand.

“Will you show me around town tomorrow?” he asked the brunet as his eye started to close automatically with exhaustion. 

“Tomorrow,” Dipper muttered in agreement, stifling a yawn.

For the first time in years, Bill actually had a good night’s sleep.


End file.
